A history textbook critics say “whitewashes” the history of Islam will continue to be used in Volusia County schools after a four-hour school board meeting Monday.

Almost 80 speakers addressed the board, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported late Monday, with critics arguing Prentice Hall’s “World History” taught in the county’s 10th-grade classes includes a 32-page chapter about the spread of Islam but glosses over the violence that accompanied it.

The book also includes no similar treatment of Christianity. That led opponents to call for its replacement, but supporters of the book said Christianity’s history is covered in earlier school years.

Volusia County School Board members took no formal vote on the textbook. Only one, Republican Linda Costello, wanted the subject to be reviewed more. The board’s other Republican, Stan Schmidt, supported the book.

Photo Credit:News-Journal/Jim TillerRick Sarmiento shows Diane and Dave Pint , Ocala, the Islamic part of a high school history book outside the Volusia County School Administrative Complex

“I’m still confident with this book and its presentation to our students,” School Board Chairwoman Diane Smith said near the end of the meeting, according to the News-Journal.

The issue flared in late October and early November, when a parent of a Volusia student grew alarmed at the textbook’s content. Word about the textbook spread through social media, leading to a protest being planned for the Volusia County School Board’s Nov. 5 meeting.

That meeting was canceled because of security concerns

Critics included the Volusia County Republican Executive Committee, which complained the text wasn’t balanced, and residents who said the book “whitewashes” Islamic history.

The county’s Democrats lined up with the Council on American Islamic Relations to support the book.

The controversy grew heated leading up to Monday’s meeting, with CAIR accusing the book’s critics of being “book burners” – and a student at the school board meeting said removing the book would be like teaching “me and my friends to hate.”

Maybe they just wanted students to get a bigger picture. The textbook, critics said, lacked the full picture.

“This book is ridiculously biased,” a Port Orange resident said, according to the News-Journal. Another called it “vanilla history,” the paper reported.

When liberals complain about the n-word being used in “Huckleberry Finn” is it hate? Residents in Volusia County, Fla., the United States of America, turn out to air grievances about a portion of a curriculum and it’s Kristallnacht all over again?

No matter how the textbook fight turned out, when it comes to history, libs have a lot to learn.